1.13.19

I stood in front of the bathroom mirror

this morning and stared at myself for a 

long time. I don't recognize myself these

days. My face surprises me. It belongs to

someone else. I stare at myself, and other

people stare back. I see my mother in the

wrinkled furrow between my eyebrows. I

used to want to smoothe it with my thumb,

wipe away the anger there. My father is in

the tired bags under my eyes. It hurts me

sometimes, to see such quiet exhaustion. 

My brother is in the curve of my ears, in the

cowlick on the back of my head, in the way

my eyes squint closed when I smile. 

There are parents that I don't know in my eyes, 

and in the thumbprint in the middle of my
chin. I see memories in my face, too, if I
look too long: in the slouched slope of my 

shoulders, in the way they curl further and 

further forward the more I stand there; in

the way my hands tug at my shirt, or dive

into my pockets, or pick at the rough edges of

my nails; in the shifting of my feet, and the

cringe resting in the corners of my mouth; in

the way that I twitch and can't meet my own 

eyes. I punched the glass once and it splintered.

When I looked at myself, there was a broken

image of my face, disproportioned and cut apart. 

It was almost beautiful. It was almost a

representation. It was almost art. It would have
been, if it had not been so awful to look at.

The mirror isn't broken anymore, but the
reflection still is. Too many pieces but still not

enough. I wear too many faces these days. None

of them are mine. I have been a crowd for too long.